FOSTER CARE & ADOPTION

Foster parenting is an opportunity to provide a much needed service to a child in your community. Through no fault of their own, these youth have come into state care due to abuse, neglect or abandonment from those who should have nurtured and protected them. 

Our highest priority is to match children with loving families who will provide a safe and supportive environment. Foster families come in all varieties, including single parent, same sex, blended and mixed race. Each year more than 23,000 youth turn 18 without ever having families to call their own. At Cornerstones of Care, our job is to find, prepare and support the right family — the right fit — for each child in the state’s care within the counties we serve.

Placement Preferences

When a child enters state custody, we work tirelessly to find a placement with a nurturing family. It’s in the best interest of the child to either safely reunify them with their family or find a relative/kinship placement with extended family or a familiar face, such as a coach or a teacher. Our priority is to keep siblings together whenever possible. We utilize Missouri's policy for placement preference when a child is removed from their home:

1. Parent
2. Grandparents
3. Immediate Relatives
4. Kin in the Community
5. Foster Parent

Become a Foster Parent

There are many reasons why people become foster or adoptive parents — the desire to help children, wanting to give back to the community, etc. Whatever your reason may be, we offer various services to help you along the way.

• Recruitment and Licensing — Working with each state's children's division, we provide families with the training and licensing Kansas and Missouri requires to become a foster parent. 
• Treatment Foster Care — This is the highest level of care for youth who have experienced extreme trauma. Our team provides you with enhanced and individualized support to help the child placed with you heal.
  
• Foster Care Case Management — We provide comprehensive foster care case management services to focus on reunifying the family in a safe environment. These services are automatic upon entering into foster care. 

Adoption Services

We offer adoption services through Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, a program which provides dedicated adoption professionals who focus solely on finding homes for foster youth who might have more difficulty being placed. Many of the youth in this program are older, have special needs or are part of a large sibling group. This program is funded through grants received from the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.